Today we’d like to introduce you to Mark Ripley.
Mark is a seasoned professional with 30+ years of musical experience. He is well-versed in the classics and standards with a special love for Jazz. Music is his passion and he is also quite passionate about his students attaining their musical goals.
Highlights of his professional career include:
- Performing on the same stage with Dizzy Gillespie, The Platters, Frank Sinatra Jr. and several performances with Les Elgart and his orchestra; famous for his writing of renowned arrangement of Bandstand Boogie – The American Bandstand Theme Song
- Pianist on an internationally released CD/Album; Texas State of Mind and Jazz Journey, endorsed by Doc Severinson
- Performed under the Baton of Johnny Mann: Two-Time Grammy Award Winner, Five-Time Grammy Award Nominee, arranger and producer of 39 albums http://www.johnnymannsingers.com
All through high school & college Mark hung out at the local music store quite a bit and landed a position teaching youngsters and oldster’s piano, organ and accordion. Teaching private and group lessons, he honed his skill on the latter with as many as 15 to 20 kids at a time; you should have heard that! He found this very rewarding and happily continues this lifelong passion of teaching others how to have fun playing music.
Once in college he enrolled at the University of Wisconsin Parkside School of Music and studied classical piano with the renowned Steven Swedish out of Milwaukee, WI. Mr. Swedish was known for performing with symphonies around the globe as well as being the primary pianist for violinist Eugene Fodor back in the ‘70’s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Fodor_(violinist)
In addition, Mark studied composition with composer August Wegner and completed Jazz/Lab Band studies under the tutelage of Tim Bell from the world renowned One O’Clock Lab Band of Denton, Texas.
Upon graduation in 1978 with his Bachelors in Music from UW, Mark decided to see what else the world had to offer and packed his bags to study music even more seriously at the UNT School of Music in Denton, Texas. (Home of the aforementioned One O’Clock Lab Band) He was fortunate enough to study with Dan Haerle and Rich Matteson: both internationally known jazz educators at UNT.
Mark had fallen in love with Big Band music while at UW Parkside, so he kept that passion alive by playing piano with a local Dallas band known as Pete Petersen & The Collection Jazz Orchestra. Their first album, Texas State of Mind, was released in 1983 and was followed by a CD called Jazz Journey. (Both were endorsed by Doc Severinson, former leader and trumpeter from The Tonight Show band during the Johnny Carson era.) The band performed all over N. Texas and was a mainstay for several years at the former Dallas Jazz Club called Strictly Tabu: now a sports bar.
There were many other bands Mark played with throughout the years. One was the Celebration Orchestra, which performed Basie and Ellington standards. A little tidbit on this band is that Grammy Award winner Norah Jones had previously played piano with the band. Mark played out of the same book Norah used before becoming famous. Another band was the Crosswinds Jazz Band with Christian based roots dedicated to the mission of aiding fundraising for good causes throughout the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex.
Mark was also asked to perform with the TI Jazz Band kicking off the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in 2010 at the famous Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas. http://wwwdallasculture.org/meyersonsymphonycenter
Mark also gladly shared his talents in Carrollton, Texas by teaching piano for the Boys and Girls Club and performing for nearly 10 years on the keyboards for the worship band at Bent Tree Bible Fellowship Church. He also served at Watermark Community Church in Dallas, Texas in the kid’s music program.
Most recently Mark has been teaching piano to students as young as 6 on up to one student that was recently 92!! He typically teaches at his private studio as well as at Greenhill school and Parish Episcopal School.
Another offering Mark has is teaching in-home lessons to those who wish to have the lesson taught in their home on their own instrument. This offers the student privacy and convenience and gives a little “Windshield” time for Mark; not a bad thing when the weather is nice here in Texas!
Has it been a smooth road?
This is actually my 3rd career. I began in 1980 as a sales exec for IBM (15yrs)
Then owned an IT Headhunting business for almost 20yrs
Finally, I got burned out on all the dishonesty in the head hunting industry and decided to pursue my lifelong passion of music about 7yrs ago.
For a while, I did both head hunting and music until I got my musical feet planted firmly on the ground. 3 years later I took the leap of faith and began teaching and performing full-time.
My 1st two years were quite tough; as the revenue was never very stable. But now things have leveled off.
I’m so glad I made the change. The stress load is so much less and has made the change one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
I do everything; I’m president, chief bottle washer, number cruncher, sales guy, receptionist. You name it, I probably do it. When you are in this business it could get kind of lonely, as I’m all by myself. But if you are a “self-motivated” type of individual, you can have a blast and never give yourself a second chance at being bored.
My mornings tend to be very open. Although, they are only as open as I allow them to be. Some of the tasks I accomplish in the mornings are catching up on emails, sending out quotations, responding to lesson requests, making phone calls, doing banking related activities, meeting with my accountant, holding rehearsals, sometimes giving lessons to other business owners or retirees. Morning piano students tend to be mostly adults that control their own schedules, or possibly work a 2nd or 3rd shift job. If they are children; which I have a couple of them, they tend to be “home-schooled” kids.
I’ve taught everything from Accountants to CEO’s to Doctors to Lawyers to Nurses to Administrators, Retired Science Teacher, Software Programmers, National Mortgage Director, Realtors, House Wives, Help Desk Manager, Pregnant Moms, Home Builders, Home Flippers….these are just some of the career paths a few of my students are coming from.
If I feel like pursuing additional performing business I may visit retirement homes in the mornings anywhere throughout the metroplex and talk to them about my performing for their residents, many mornings are spent either auditioning or performing for them. If I get the gig, we’ll fill out a contract and set up a time for me to return and perform many of the old standard tunes they grew up with.
After noon is when I get extremely busy. I have students usually scheduled every day beginning at 2 or 3PM. They tend to be back to back either at Greenhill Private School (where I’ve got an additional studio), at my home studio or at The Spanish House School (Spanish Emersion School in South Dallas – near Lakewood) or I also drive directly to some student’s homes – N. Dallas all the way to Southlake. (I do “House Calls” LOL). I teach 6 days a week with somewhere around 35 students. My students vary in age, anywhere from Pre-K to High School-ers. My oldest was 92yrs old recently!!!!
Many of the parents of the kids I teach praise me for the amount of patience I’ve got teaching their child.
Later on, in the evenings you may catch me performing around Dallas at Private Parties, Local clubs, Bars, Restaurants, or The Denton Jazz Festival this past April 30th. A few public places I’ve recently been known to perform at are St. Martins Wine Bistro on Lower Greenville, SOHO Food and Jazz Restaurant in Addison or Kirby’s Steakhouse in Southlake.
There are quite a few piano teachers in town. But few are also working musicians. So that is one of the areas that sets me apart from a lot of my peers. Plus, I also not only play the piano, but sing along either as a solo act, or in trio / combo settings. I’ve performed solo all the way up to 19-piece big band. You put everything together into what I do and you will get very few musicians that do as much as what I am doing.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
In my opinion, Dallas is one of the best places in the country for someone starting out doing what I’m doing. Many, many young families moving here, which means an unending source of new piano students.
The teaching environment is awesome. Although, I wish that schools would allow private music lessons into their daytime curriculum. I have to wait for school to let out prior to the bulk of my lessons beginning.
Performance-wise, with the amount of folks moving to N. Texas, that means lots of performance venues will be opening up to serve all the new people moving to Texas; hopefully lots of Gig opportunities.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.pianolessonsindallas.com
- Phone: 214.718.4202
- Email: mark@pianolessonsindallas.com; maripley55@gmail.com
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/MarkRipley-Music
Image Credit:
Good Morning Texas
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